Assassins?

[SpencerH]

Has anyone else noticed that assassins in 1.2 seem to be very ineffective? I havent managed to kill a diplomat yet (and believe me I've tried). Spies still seem to be reasonably vulnerable though (ie I've killed one or two).

[LordKhaine]

Assassins never get a 100% chance of killing anyone anymore, the highest they can get is 95%

The idea was to stop assassins killing well, everyone. I have to say I prefered it before. It was hard enough before to get a decent assassin. Now it's pretty impossible to build up a decent assassin.

[Quillan]

Not really. I've had at least 6 assassins so far in this campaign that reached 10 Subterfuge. What I've found is that I have to start on captains. You're right, it seems much harder to take out Diplomats and Spies than it was before the patch. The 10 assassin only has about a 50-60% chance of killing a spy with a 5 Subterfuge, and unless he has a few of those "increased chance to be assassinated" traits, taking out a faction leader/heir is really hard.

[hung41584]

here is the rule for assassins,

start out killing easy guys, then attack low level diplomats, then attack medium units like spies. then once you are a little higher, then go for family members. Do all this while making sure that once you target a "character with a face", they are dead and you don't let them live past 3 attempts. Cause after that, they develop resistance to it and you must move on. And since its so hard to develop assassins, just make sure you develop 2 or 3 key ones that become real professionals and then you'll be able to take out half of a factions family members. Also, have spies helping you out too, they seem to attempt success.

Its actually an annoyance once you are able to kill family members cause you'll be draining them like crazy. Even on vh/vh i managed to kill like 6 macedonian family members and then eventually got tired of cheapshots.

[Kaldhore]

Yea Assasins need to be trained - as do spies. Use them on soft targets - rebels enemy captains etc, build him up. Transfer retinues to the best assasins - and as they get older transfer them again.

[Quillan]

I do the same, and it makes training the next generation so much easier. Your just-created assassin has between a 1-3 in Subterfuge. If you've managed to collect a pet monkey, catamite, and courtesan all on an older assassin, transferring them to a young rookie will turn a 1 into a 6 right off, giving him a much better chance of killing those low rank targets. It doesn't take much at that stage to gain a couple more points of skill.

[SpencerH]

Well my point was not really that assassins need to be trained (although y'all have made some good suggestions) but that there is a substantive change in assassins abilities compared to vanilla RTW (ie I'm not just imagining things).

[Oaty]

I get 95 percent chance on some diplomats from a rookie assassin. I think diplomats that have failed bribes can get negative traits.

I was about to assasinate 1 until I saw his traits. -3 influence and plus 20 percent cost in negotiations. Why asassinate him.

Anyways look for a diplomat low on influence and your rookies asassin should have no problems.

[Malrubius]

I just had an interesting experience with an assassin who started with a 2 in subterfuge, who gained cutthroat and a catamite, for a total of 4 eyes. Then I sent him to assassinate a rebel captain with an army of about 160 men, 75% chance of success. I had made an attempt on this captain before, with worse odds, and failed, but didn't lose the assassin. This time, however, he was killed by the captain's bodyguards. A pretty sad end. And definitely an unexpected result.

On the other hand, naval combat seems a bit more balanced than before. I can expect to win if the odds are in my favor.

[SpencerH]

On the other hand, naval combat seems a bit more balanced than before. I can expect to win if the odds are in my favor.

Ye gods, don't get me started on the disaster known as naval combat.

[The Stranger]

naval combat sucks in all the TW series, don't let me get started. oh well here it goes.
six cogs get anihilated by 2 of the lowest form of byzantine ships, well that's unfair.

in RTW i get gold chevroned ships in no time, i don't know why everybody complains.

[SpencerH]

Why do retreating ships still ignore ZOC?

Why dont retreating ships retreat toward home?

Why can I still play ping pong with retreating enemy ships back and forth across the sea?

Why can AI vessels with 10 men choose to blockade a port rather than return to home port for refit?

These are just the most obvious points that I've noticed that should have been fixed with 1.2. They were all well documented with the vanilla game.